Anna Lisa

Fostering deep thinkers & strong communicators through student-driven discussion @parlayideas & @parlayseminars

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

What happens when students get an open AND structured space to explore ideas?

They become more articulate, confident & willing to engage with even more challenging questions.

This @parlayseminars group has tackled:
- Government shutdowns
- Solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict
- Indigenous land claims
- Religion in the modern world

This is what happens when students are trusted with real ideas & expected to engage seriously.

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

@karelvuong @potatoslav been working on vertical integration tbh

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

@NirZicherman 😂

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

“The key question is: are you doing what you honestly judge best, by your own lights, given the full context of the life you are consciously building?”

[Gena Gorlin @Gena_I_Gorlin]

If we want to defend “agency” against its critics, what we need is not to hedge it, but to rethink its full meaning and scope.

Human agency is NOT fundamentally about “just doing things”. It’s about taking conscious ownership of your life.

This includes taking ownership over the ends you choose, no less than the means by which you enact them.

Someone who “successfully” wreaks revenge upon all who have ever slighted him, at the cost of actually building a flourishing life for himself, is strictly lower-agency than someone who chooses the latter.

Same goes for “successfully” starving yourself to death as a show of martyrdom, or blowing up your life savings for the sake of a momentary thrill, or propping up a dictator who then makes life unlivable for everyone including you. All lower-agency than even a quiet and unremarkable life spent on constructive, personally fulfilling pursuits.

The hardest and most important way we exercise our agency (or fail to) is in architecting our lives: that is, designing the latticework of interconnected ends to which we want our life to add up.

“Should I optimize for impact, or enjoyment, or financial security?”

“What do I want in a life partner?”

“Will my life be better or worse if I have kids?”

There are more and less agentic ways to think through such design decisions, and the vast majority of people default to the less agentic ways.

That’s why so much of my writing focuses on how to approach your life design agentically (cf the builder’s mindset).

The #1 way for most people to increase their agency is to put more honest, independent thought into architecting their own ends, versus 1) executing on some prefabricated blueprint of a great life (whether supplied by the do-gooder EA movement, or Silicon Valley, or the bible, or one’s drill-sergeant parents) or 2) haphazardly piling on bricks and girders with no view to the overall design.

Instead, most of the current discourse on “high agency” just presents another prefabricated blueprint, loosely based on the cultural archetype of a Silicon Valley tech founder: “you can just do things,” “move fast and break things,” “permissionless action,” etc.

Sometimes it’s indeed high-agency to behave in these ways. Other times it’s higher-agency to plan ahead and think things through, or move slowly and demand perfection, or consult with experts.

The key question is: are you doing what you honestly judge best, by your own lights, given the full context of the life you are consciously building?

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

@samjvuong I actually find it helpful to see a devil’s advocate pov to contrast every reply.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Connecting young people to digital networks serves no purpose if they remain disconnected from themselves, others, and their own interiority. We must help young people rediscover silence, reflection, the ability to ask questions, the depth of relationships, and openness to transcendence. To listen to the soul, we must lend an ear, because the soul's voice is not a shout, but a whisper.

[Sam Vuong @samjvuong]

A Great Conversation with @_torontosociety

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

Lately this painting has been living rent free in my mind. It's simultaneously beautiful/frustrating/inspiring/humbling. Yes you can stretch to fill the gap between you and the divine. You have agency - how cool! But even at your best, you are still a two-legged creature. You are flawed. The gap will always exist.

Michelangelo was too real when he painted this on the ceiling. To see it you must look up so high to focus that it strains your neck.

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

@skanwar @sciohn_fhanne yes

[Sid @sid_srk]

Catalyst kicks off on June 1
Deadline to apply is this weekend (ambition dot inc / catalyst)
Come with an appetite to level up

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

the garbage room of a condo building is an anthropological goldmine

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

@SimoneSyed @samjvuong @karelvuong 👀

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

@EricDLombardi this is so cool!

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

When you're good at not giving up, the challenge is knowing when it's time to stop.

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

Oh no the firework audio on the livestream DURING the real fireworks 💀

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

Everyone at harbourfront rn is playing the livestream on their phones.

Drake knows how to mobilize a city…

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

Aurally this is hell to me, but I respect this

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

Have an ambition that you want to pursue?

Catalyst is your opportunity to explore it in a contained 2 week experience, with tools and peers to support you.

Apply here👇🏼.

[Sid @sid_srk]

After all the socializing during tech week, the city needs to catalyze its evolution, starting from YOU.
2 weeks, 20 people, unbounded ambition.
At New Stadium. June 1-12. Apply below

[Anna Lisa @annalysis7]

Noticed a teacher ran a discussion titled "Life"

Students: "Life without suffering is incomplete"

🫠